About “ End of Life for iMASCHINE”

LostInFoundation · 2023-06-20T15:03:26+00:00

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https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/14382/end-of-life-for-imaschine-official-statement-faq

You know what? After so many lies, it almost feel (sadly) relieving to see them being honest. I just guess why not saying the truth from the beginning, since in the end they have to do it anyway…

Am I happy with this decision? Not at all…but it’s their right to do so…just the dishonesty leaves a bitter taste in my mouth

And the combination between their decision not corresponding to what I would like plus that “untransparency” towards users is what makes me doubt them. Not the fact that they are moving away from what I liked about NI (it’s their free choice in the end which market to target), but this annoying combination.

Shoot me telling me you’re gonna shoot me. I would prefer that to “don’t worry, the gun is unloaded” and after 5 seconds “BANG!”

BTW: keep on mind this post when they will be subscription only and I will use all the screenshots I made of them telling me “don’t worry, one time payment will not be removed” 😔

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6xes

it would be really nice of Native instrument... to simply give out a free copy of Imaschine... for those who have purchased a Komplete bundle as a end of Imaschine send off *smiles

i was looking forward to making a purchase of both imaschine & the ultimate bundle... it was not to be

LostInFoundation

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/79041#Comment_79041

They never will be doing something similar. Being their mantra “we want to give to users only the best experience” (…) they would say that giving a product that will not be supported is not following this mantra.

BTW, to be clear: iMaschine never had a single hiccup even on newer OS. Even if in their official statement they say “technical issues that have arisen following recent iOS updates”. Or if in the previous official statements they said “we removed iMaschine from the AppStore to check compatibility with new OS to give our users only the best experience”.

And since the new reason they give is

Because we are committed to providing the best level of support for the music creation tools we offer, we occasionally retire older products, like iMASCHINE 2. This enables us to focus our resources and development efforts on a core set of products and bring new, innovative ones to market

I would add that keeping it has it is without any update in the store for all these years didn’t cost them a penny, since they are paying the AppStore Developer fees anyway for keeping Traktor DJ there (Btw…will it be the next?). Eventually it gave them some small revenues with the expansions sells (maybe too small?).

Anyway, the reason for the End of life are others, surely not spare money to “focus our resources and development efforts on a core set of products and bring new, innovative ones to market”. But it’s their business, not mine.

Kubrak

Simply, it is financial failure. Why would they continue? It costs them to have it in Apple store.... They have provided user support...

D-One

Keep in mind that just because one user doesn't have issues it doesn't mean others won't, it depends on what phone you got. Giving away an app you don't plan to maintain on a platform like the Appstore doesn't seem like a great idea to me.. Maybe that could work if it was for android but not in the Apple world.

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/79079#Comment_79079

Companies only pay an initial dev fee and then give out a percentage of the profit, I don't think it cost them anything to keep it up. Apple does have rules about apps that don't get updated within a certain period of time tho, 3 years i think... iMaschine was already beyond it afaik.

I do agree that if something goes EOL then the most likely cause is the fact it's not a successful product. if iMaschine was generating significant profit they wouldn't cut it, just like Jam.

Almost all Maschine side projects fail: iMaschine, Jam, Sounds.com integration, and ... people will hate me for saying this but I bet Maschine+ is also a failure in terms of units sold. Lack of improvement of everything they do 1 or 2 years after release probably doesn't help these side projects grow either.

Successful apps (and often just software in general), requires updating and improving, NI doesn't seem to agree with this for a lot of it's products 🤷‍♂️, so.... they naturally die.

GoKeez

I agree with everything @D-One wrote.

It’s really an astonishing thing I’ve yet to see outside of Native Instruments. A company with such great ideas and initial implementation (Maschine, Komplete, HW build quality, instrument/expansion quality, etc) fail so miserably in supporting their products and users.

Sure everyone screws up from time to time but NI is so damn consistent.lol. In fact, i and clearly many other users feel that they get it wrong about as much if not more than they get it right. I really don’t see how that is sustainable. Which is why I can see a bigger company buying them out. At this point I really with someone would.

My big wish would be Apple. I know the apple haters would hate that but if Apple bought them like they bought Logic I think the software and hardware would improve quickly.

Roland bought Stagelight (now Zenbeats) and it has improved drastically since with integrated hardware and new supported hardware and software. The dev team is very engaging and the products are supported by Roland Academy, Roland Cloud and on forums like Audiobus plus all the usual social medias.

At any rate, I can’t see Native Instruments sticking around like this much longer. As such I haven’t and won’t even buy expansions. No more bread without a pulse or reasonable explanation of ****** is going on.

This new forum and all of the transparency and engagement was another in a long enough track record of lies that I don’t believe anything they say anymore. I’m so glad I didn’t hold onto M+. Such an overpriced waste of hope. I’ll keep Mk3 and Maschine installed but I’ve moved on from expecting anything from NI in the way of improvement.

To think, BM3 for iPad released over 4 years ago by 2 people and cost 19.99. Not many updates but can pretty much do Maschine better than maschine (sampler is exponentially better than Maschine).

That’s wild, amazing and shameful at the same damn time.

Kubrak

I meant it cost on human resources, the user support.

Jam might have been successful, not being targeted to wrong user segment (DJs). It is good extension of Mk3 for music producers....

I guess that problem with iMaschine and so is that SW for iPad does not cost enought to cover costs, or make acceptable profit. The only solution probably is subscription plan. But I am not the fan of subscription in the least....

Hard to say, what future of M+ is. IMHO, it should have had stronger CPU, more RAM and more storage.

Low development rate of M+ lately may mean one of three things:

1) Close to EOL, termination of M+ concept

2) Maschine 3 is comming and it will be ported to M+

3) M+ Mk2 is comming together with Maschine 3.

LostInFoundation

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/79205#Comment_79205

Agree on almost all points. It is really not into NI policy to listen and try to improve. They try something, and if it succeed, ok. Otherwise…goodbye

In my opinion it is not a good policy. A big waste of efforts and years spent on developing something wasted for nothing. Probably it is also the reason why NI is struggling so much lately, needing to have investors coming in the game and changing completely their direction from “innovating company” into cash seekers producing packs and variations of the same instruments.

IMO changing their approach could be beneficial. Instead of being the company that keeps everything secret till the last minute to then release something that misses what users want or simply an undesired product, they could start a discussion with their users to see what they want and they need, therefore having infos on what could sell good since it answers users needs. But instead, what they do is exactly the opposite, not even listening when users suggest them what these needs are. And they behavior in keeping also the inevitable secret, see the case here with iMaschine (and I used these words not to say they lie till it’s inevitable to say the truth…), makes me think they will never understand the direction they took in managing the relationship with their users is exactly what is causing them so much struggles.

And that having another approach could work is even proved by other companies. Look at Akai Force. It started so so (even if it was already a good product but underestimated). But knowing they had a good product in their hands, instead of abandoning it they thought “ok…let’s make it even better and give users what they are saying we missed in it”. And now it is even a better device (even if still underestimated) and it is more respected. And if they succeeded in changing people’s opinion with a device with such a weird form factor, everyone else can 😂

Somebody said NI will be gone in 4-5 years because of their approach, and sadly I quite agree with this…

Btw: I think a developer must pay a yearly fee to stay in the AppStore, not only an initial one. But NI in any case it’s paying it, since they still have Traktor there

LostInFoundation

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/79223#Comment_79223

In fact…the sad thing we have to admit is that the company and the people who had all these wonderful ideas are no more there. This is NI only by the name, but it’s a completely different company with completely different goals. They live on what previous NI was and offered, but they are just screwing up things

LostInFoundation

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/79223#Comment_79223

You nailed it.

But one thing I’m sure: Apple could never be interested in THIS NI. Maybe, eventually, in previous one, the one innovating with hw/sw integrations. And to make them develop something for their Logic. But the new one ditching hw department to just focus on expansions and variations on the play series? Not for sure

LostInFoundation

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/79227#Comment_79227

iMaschine was never meant to make money. It was 2 things: an entry door for bringing people to the bigger things and make new users enter the NI ecosystem on computers and eventually a sort of companion for actual Maschine users. It should serve as “hey…could be interesting to buy an MK3. It ALSO has a companion app on my phone/tablet”. But they should make it a good companion (something in the lines of what D-One once suggested, namely a substitute of Jam but in an app format)

This is where they should focus: giving an extension to users spending more money on their ecosystem. Maybe it could work. But making money from something on the AppStore (as it is now with this price tier)…it’s a no no no.

You want an example of someone falling in these sort of “baits”?

I chosed the StudioLive from Presonus as my studio mixer for 2 reasons: it was a good product AND it has a very well made companion app on the iPad allowing to control it. From there, I started also using Studio One as my main DAW, and discovered for me is the best one I ever used. And then bought Atom. But I NEVER expected the app on iPad to be anything more than what it is: a companion allowing me to control it. And then started to use Studio One Remote app also for the DAW. And I’m very happy with them. They EXPAND my experience with their products, they don’t SUBSTITUTE them. This is the way

nightjar

Apple did buy Beats for big $$$ and has kept the Beats hardware going along side Apple AirPods products.

But I don't see this happening. Apple is roaring into the VR arena and NI has nothing to offer that is forward looking.

Apple buying Modartt would be much more likely.

nightjar

And with regards to music hardware...

Apple would probably rather there be lots of 3rd party companies offering a broad range of "headless controllers" to mate with Apple devices running macOS/iPadOS/iOS.

D-One

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/79228#Comment_79228

I'd resume all that by saying: Make make dope stuff and make it evolve at a decent pace, if you can't handle 100 products then don't make 100 products.

I don't think any of this will ever change, the people who made the poor decisions most likely get promoted every X years, why would you change if you keep climbing the corporate ladder and making more $ despite their mistakes? 🤷‍♂️ TBH a job where you can screw up constantly sounds perfect to me, where can I send my curriculum?

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/79227#Comment_79227

Oh I see, yeah... maintaining it would cost them, do they even have a iOS/iPadOS team? Doubt it.

Why do you think it was targeted at DJ's? All the promo I remember was using it next to Maschine to make beats but my memory might be failing me.

IDK about that cost VS profit tbh, iOS/iPadOS is a lot simpler than developing cross-compatible desktop audio apps from my very limited ignorant knowledge on this topic... On the other hand, it might require a team with more specific knowledge? No ideia.

I guarantee you none of the 3 options are gonna happen this year, not next year neither.

LostInFoundation

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/79249#Comment_79249

…and making 3rd party companies paying fees in the line of MFi…

You are probably right

Apple is very good in making others do things for them and cashing just from fees and %. Look how the whole AppStore works…

Kubrak

@LostInFoundation I did not mean just income from selling iMaschine, but also sideeffects you mention. NI could analyze how much new costumers of other stuff iMaschine brings....

Maybe that they came to conclusion, that it mostly works oposite direction. Current customer also buys iMaschine. And iMaschine as entrypoint to NI ecosystem does not work much.... It s just my guess...

Another reason for iMaschine termination may be, there is something new prepared....

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